Conventional HVAC equipment conditions outside/return air and delivers it into an occupied space creating a quality human environment. Electricity, gas, and solar are energies used to produce the heating and cooling effect and consumption is increasing as more buildings are being built. As a result, we are continually increasing our carbon footprint as well as overloading our electrical grids.
Phase change materials (PCM's) are materials that change phase between solid/liquid at variable discrete temperatures. Known phase change materials include perlite, paraffin compounds (linear crystalline alkyl hydrocarbons), sodium sulfate, fatty acids, salt hydrates and calcium chloride hexahydrate. While this list is not exhaustive, it is representative of the materials which exhibit properties common to phase change materials.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,735,327 and 7,797,950, incorporated herein by this reference for all purposes, disclose packaged phase change materials used in various active thermal insulation systems.
Accordingly, one system embodiment of the present invention incorporates phase change material into a HVAC system.